High School Junior Joins Youth Leadership Forum

By Larissa Lytwyn

HARTFORD –– Alex Snow, a 15-year-old junior at Newtown High School, will serve as a student delegate at the fifth annual Youth Leadership Forum, sponsored by the Governor’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, public and private agencies, and private sector businesses. The program will run July 28–July 31 at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.

Alex, who has been blind since birth, applied for the program at the beginning of the school year. The application, he said, was comprised largely of essay questions relating to his personal and academic development. “I was surprised that I was selected,” he said. “I definitely am more of a math person than a writer, so I was concerned that my essays weren’t going to be good enough.” He said he was delighted at his acceptance and looks forward to the experience.

The forum is a unique training program for high school juniors and seniors with disabilities that help develop leadership skills through an intense, four-day curriculum. Participants are chosen on the basis of their contribution to their schools and communities as well as demonstrated leadership potential. Students are representative of Connecticut in terms of geography, gender, ethnicity, and disability type.

Specific goals of the forum include setting and prioritizing goals, making effective decisions, increasing self-awareness and confidence, fostering team-building, self-advocacy, and exploration of leadership styles, and other valuable skills. By the end of the forum, this year’s participants will have developed individual “Personal Leadership Plans,” which will guide them, as individuals with disabilities, in effecting change in their communities.

For more information about the program, contact Kathleen M Sullivan, YLF co-chair and human resources consultant for the state of Connecticut’s Department of Administrative Services, at 860-713-5231 or email, Kathleen.M.Sullivan@PO.State.CT.us